I M Perfect lady

Tag: Waking

  • Get us back

    As I was mowing the grass yesterday, I wondered if all Mental Illnesses mean you are not in reality?  That the meaning of being ill in your mind, is when you can't see or be with reality? While there are different stages of not being in reality, are all various degrees… being removed from what is truly going on?

    What I do know from my experience, is that as a child of abuse, IF you can't speak of it, and must hide it, you are forced to live in an alternate reality…you could say forced to make your mind come up with a nicer version of where you live.  And this is the seed that starts our Mental Illness.

    The beginning of being 'sick' with reality.  

    I think many will focus or see "Mental Illness" as a mind that has gone wrong, but not how or what its causes are.  Just seeing it as a broken mind, but not looking at this from a wider viewpoint, doesn't give the overall picture of what it truly means as an application in life?

    Perception is all we change when we are asked to keep a secret.

    We are not changing the person who has abused us, JUST our perceptions of him/her.

    And this change of perception is the cause or being mental in reality.

    What many have suggested to me, is that I went mental, when I flopped into reality and became unmoveable there.  I would no longer 'change my perception' I became rooted in reality, no matter their pleads, their reasons, their needs….I was like a rock.

    I clung to reality like it was my life line and I refused to let go.  

    Now I know that my life prior was a life of mental illness, where a huge proportion of it was lived with incorrect perceptions.

    What I didn't know is that I was a highly functioning mental lady…at the time.  I was not able to know my perceptions were all wrong about my childhood and family.  

    Knowing this is common place after abuse, makes me normal.

    Here is what Terry Wise wrote in her book, "Waking Up".

    "Does not talking about it allow you to become less aware of it?" (Betsy her therapist asked)

    "I guess not," I replied, suddenly realizing that of course, I was always aware of the things that bothered me.  But, prompting a more extensive discussion about my anxiety by admitting this to Dr. Glaser was another matter. "Regardless, it still feels worse to talk about it," I continued."

    "It may feel worse at first, Terry. But, I believe in facing our feelings head on, not running from them. Talking about the anxiety over and over again will give you a different understanding of it.  If you develop a different understanding, you will eventually feel less anxious," Betsy said, attempting to reassure me."

    "Yes, but that doesn't mean I can't hate talking about how I feel," I replied."

    "What feelings do you hate talking about?"

    "Anxiety and loneliness. Even when I am with people, I feel alone."  I soon learned that the more uncomfortable or anxious I became, the more Betsy pushed. What's more, from this session forward, she always knew when to push, as my discomfort was written in red, all over my face."

    "Do you ever remember feeling like this before?" she asked."

    "Like what:" I stalled."

    "Anxious, alone, or anything else you are feeling right now," Betsy sighed rolling her eyes at having to drag every word out of me."

    "Yes, plenty of times. Except for the years Pete was healthy, I've probably felt like this most of my life.  I've never felt so disconnected," I explained.  My face instantly began to flush again.  I had always been an expert at creating appearances, choosing when and where to maintain my composure. That was over.  My anatomy forced my hand."

    "Terry, why are you so anxious? What haven't you told me?" she persisted. I could hardly hear her words over the pound calypso drums that now inhabited the inside of my heart."

    "I don't want to say."

    "Why not?"

    "Because, then it will become true," I replied, surprising myself with the insight.  Until I voiced this answer, even I had never been fully aware of this fear."

    "I don't understand.  Explain that to me," Betsy demanded.

    "Because saying things out loud is different.  If I don't put some of my thoughts into words, I can still hold onto the chance that my beliefs may not be true,"  I explained. Somehow I had deduced that hearing my thoughts aloud could transform a feeling into a reality."

    "But if you talk about your thoughts, maybe there will be a different way to understand them," Betsy suggested.

    "There isn't any other way.  I already understand exactly what I'm feeling. Believe me Betsy, I know certain things about myself, and they are undeniable no matter how you look at them," I insisted."

    "There are always other ways. Terry, do you remember how you felt when I first talked about Louis and the abuse?  You've felt like this before, but after you talked, your perspectives changed in ways that you hadn't perdicted. What are these 'things' that you know about yourself? What are you so afraid to say out loud?"

    "Anxiety throbbed in every organ of my body. Even my tongue felt like it had a heart of its own.  Throughout my adult life, I had numerous experiences with public speaking. Even if I was rattling inside, my complexion had never changed, and I always remained poised.  Now however, I had no choice but to step forward."

    "Mostly its that I am a fraud," I confessed, inhaling deeply."

    "What do you mean?"

    "I'm not the person that people think I am. There is so much about me that people don't know."

    "What don't they know?" Betsy asked."

    "They don't know how I feel about life or myself. Generally, people think I have my shit together, that I am confident, and self-assured. I've scammed everyone into believing that I'm someone I'm not," I answered.

    "So then tell me, Terry, who are you?" Betsy asked.

    "I would rather not say."

    "Why not?"

    "Because, like I told you, once I say it, it will be for real," I repeated."

    "You mean that as long as you don't say the words, how you feel won't be real?" Betsy would not let up for a moment."

    "I suppose," I answered, feeling her reasoning loosen my stronghold."

    "Please Terry.  I want you to tell me what it is about you that you are so afraid to say," Betsy softly pleaded.  Her persistent kindness gave me a final push."

    "I'm selfish and dishonest," I whispered, slowly peeling back another layer of my appearances."

    "Why do you think you are dishonest?" she asked."

    "Because I've alway needed to feel someone worry about me. When I was younger used to pretend or exaggerate things, so that my friends would be concerned. there is definitely something wrong with me." Until the moment the answer rolled off my tongue, I had always planned on taking this "quality" of mine to my grave. I immediately felt my anxiety rise incrementally with every degree of my body tempature."

    "Why do you think that makes you dishonest?" Betsy was surprisingly unfazed."

    "Because, I did those things for attention, and to feel taken care of.  My feelings are not truthful if I embellish them."

    "Terry, I think if we look closely enough at your history, and the people in your life, you would see that others were not always able to give you what you needed.  This isn't a surprise. Obviously, nobody can get every one of their needs met all the time. But, I think what is remarkable is that you found a way to fill some of them.  This does not mean you were dishonest.  it just means you found a way to get what you were missing," Betsy explained."

    "No, Betsy.  I always felt cared for and loved by the people in my life.  I was born with a sickness.  I know it," I insisted."

    "You could have been cared for and loved, while at the same time, had needs that weren't being met.  It's not black or white, or either-or, Terry," Betsy replied.  "What sickness do you think you were born with?"

    "I don't know. There's something wrong with me because I am the type of person that I am, and the attention I crave."

    "What type of person are you?"

    "I finally decided to brave my most private, defining, character flaw. "It's hard to tell you. But, I guess it doesn't matter saying it, or not saying it, won't change the fact that it's true," I began, inching out from behind one of my most private walls of self-condemnation."

    "What Terry? What's the truth?" Betsy softly asked, trying to cushion my turmoil."

    "The truth is that I am a loser."  My mouth felt like it had produced its own sounds."  Terry Wise.

    This book clearly shows the state we get left in when we are not allowed to be with reality….how we flip reality around and in turn it flips us backwards.

    Instead of my father being bad, I was.

    Instead of my mother being unloving, I was unlovable.

    So, again, it is my humble opinion, that mental illness is not being able to be with reality…we were forced into being mental in order to survive and to be loved.

    I highly recommend reading this book…it is a great exchange between those outside of reality and those who work to get us back.



  • Serves Me!

    In Waking, by Matthew Sanford, he writes again about his experience with yoga.

     

    “Maha mudra is a strange pose.  In yogic lore, if a yogi practices it enough, he or she can eat anything, even something poisonous. Regardless, it has a magical feel to it.  Seated on the floor, one leg is straight in front of you.  The other leg is bent at the knee, with the sole of the foot pressed against your inner thigh of the opposite leg.  One reaches down, hooks the big toe of outstretched leg with the thumbs and forefingers of both hands, lowers the chin toward the chest, inhales, and tightens the abdomen, pulling it back toward the spine and up toward the diaphragm.”

     

    “As I move into this pose, something clicks or snaps into place or becomes manifest. I experience a new ding.  I suddenly feel a tangible sense of my whole body – inside and out, paralyzed and unparalyzed.  I am stunned.”

     

    “Jo, this feels different, something is different.  I can feel where the pose goes, the unity between the actions.  I can feel it actually moving.” I gasp. “The abdomen hits back and up, and the straight leg thigh pushes into the floor…right?”

     

    “Yes.” She says, breaking a smile.

    “Then the…energy” – I struggle for words – “moves out through the heel.”

     

    “Well actually, the physical actions is to hit down with the thigh and stretch out through the heel,” she says, her tone informative. “….as the spine and chest life in opposition.” I chirp in.  My mind is racing.  How am I feeling this?  How is this possible?  I am perplexed, but the moment is mine.  My entire body is working in concert.  It has been a long time – some thirteen years.  My lost body and my potential body have joined in this pose.  My past, my present and my future are touching.  Although I am choking with grief, I am also an excitable boy.  I have worked so hard to make it back to this moment.”

     

    Jo and I do not say much.  It is too big, too fresh, and not to be spoiled.  Silence – the lamp’s light, the darkness outside the window, our reflections in the class, my creaking house.  My world has changed its shape tonight.  A new level of me is coming alive.  I am overwhelmed with the feeling that my body has been waiting for me to stop neglecting it, waiting for me to quiet down and listen.  My heart is breaking. I feel grateful.” 

                        Matthew

     

    My heart is breaking and I am grateful is exactly the correct sentiment.  To sit in awe of all the neglect and how the body still worked to serve me, given what I have fed it and how I moved it.

     

    I have done lots of yoga this year, working to help my body process all the stressful situations it has endured, and giving it flexibility and strength to move easier.

     

    My mind, my body and my soul are all being greatly helped in yoga each day.

     

    What a great vehicle we get to ride around in!

     

    I too am heartbroken and grateful, many times a day as I witness how it lives and breathes and serves me!

     

     

     

     

  • As I Yoga Along

    “A monk sits cross-legged in the middle of the road, meditating on existence.  A powerful insight consumes him: He and the Universe are One.  He intuits further that the Universe, being One, would never harm him itself.  And as long as he stays connected, he too will never come to harm.  During this timeless thought, he feels the ground shaking.  He looks up and sees an elephant walking down the very same road on which he sits.  He smiles inwardly and continues to meditate.  As the animal draws closer, he opens his eyes again.  A man is standing on the back of the elephant, waving his arms and yelling, “Get out of the road! Get out of the road!”  Completely confident in his realization, he returns to his meditation.  The elephant squashes him.  As he lies there hemorrhaging to death, he calls out, “How did this happen? I don’t understand.”  His Zen master comes out of the ditch, walks over to him, and says, “Didn’t you hear IT tell you to get out of the road?”

                    Zen parable

     

    More from the book Waking, by Matthew Sanford.

     

    “I was about to commit to the study of yoga and do so with a paralyzed body. The truth that my body possessed memory, that it was also conscious, was as undeniable as the man yelling from the back of the elephant.  But I had no idea what this meant for my practice of yoga.  How do you interact with a body that you cannot feel directly but is conscious nonetheless?”

     

    “This story of the monk’s mistake was reassuring to me.  I did not need to know anything in advance.  I just needed to stay open to my experience, to what was obvious.  My yoga practice would talk to me like the man on the back of the elephant.  I just needed to listen and not prejudge what I was being told.”

     

    “This story also made me feel less alone.  The Universe would talk to me when and if it was needed.  My task was simple:  I only had to listen.  If I did, the Universe’s guidance would be obvious, not hidden.  I would feel connected, not disconnected.  The phrase “back of the elephant” became my reminder to listen to the experience of my life and not deny it.”

     

    “My lifelong commitment to yoga, my practical journey through mind-body integration, begins slowly after surgery.  Not only am I sore, but this is also new territory for both Jo and me.  During our first meeting postsurgery, I am still unable to do any poses.  I just need to tell her about the tunnel I have been in- the hospital, the body memories, the grief.  This intimacy is a testament to the strength of our relationship. Although there is already a deep connection between us, we do not know each other that well.”

     

    “We are on the dojo floor – two willing students have helped me down – and Jo is sitting directly in front of me, spine erect, with the soles of her feet pressing against each other.  The pose is called baddha konosana, and she sits in it almost the entire time we visit. Teaching without teaching.”

     

    “She listens to my story, says little, and absorbs much.  She intuitively knows that I have much to let go of. She knows firsthand the way memory can uncoil from a body. As I tell her about my time in the hospital, I expect vacant eyes of polite disbelief.  But instead, she nods, looks down and whispers, “I know.”  Jo and I have met each other at the perfect time.  My need is obvious.  But Jo, too, is in transition.  She is in the very early stages of starting what will become the San Diego Yoga Studio. She is ready to strike out on her own and is gaining confidence.  She is also ready to take her fourteen years of yogic experience and consciously combine it with her uncanny ability to empathize with and project into another person’s body.  In order to teach me, she will have to intuitively connect with what it’s like to be paralyzed.  She will have to imagine how yoga might manifest through such a body.  Luckily for me, Jo has this rare ability in spades.”

     

    “So begins one of the relationships in my life of which I am most proud.  There was no model for us to follow, no example from which to learn.  Jo teaches Iyengar Yoga, a highly refined system developed by yoga master Sri B.K.S. Ivengar.  After meeting me the first time Jo had called two senior teachers in the Ivengar method for advice.  Their recommendations of one or two seated poses and some shoulder and arm stretches were of little help. She had already exhausted their ideas in our first session.  She was left to her own devices, to her own creativity, to an uncommon openness that would guide our work together.  She didn’t have to be an expert. She knew Iyengar yoga – that was clear.  I was her student – that was also clear. But we explored the possibilities of yoga and paralysis together.  She made me a partner in a great experiment – the mark of a fabulous teacher.”

     

    “Jo had the patience and the foresight not to force the Iyengar system of yoga onto my body. For instance, she did not worry that I could not do standing poses – the poses that are considered to be the building blocks of the entire system.  Instead, Jo had faith in the system’s underlying principles.  Iyengar yoga distinguishes itself from the other styles of yoga by its heightened empasis on alignment and precision.  I believe the reason for this is profound.  When anatomical structures – bones, muscles, ligaments, tendons, skin, and so on – are brought into greater alignment, the mind connects with the body more fluidly and with less effort.”

     

    “This phenomenon is easily experienced. Sit in a chair, slump your shoulders, and let your neck and head jut forward away from the torso. We all know this position – we call it bad posture. Now, sit up straight, life the chest, broaden across the collarbones, and extend out through the top of the head.  Notice how presence activates in the inner thighs and down through our feet, especially through your heels.  The mind moves without intent, without volition. As the chest lifts and the spine extends, the mind follows the more efficient distribution of gravity and naturally increases its presence in the lower extremities.  Iyengar yoga, by emphasizing alignment and precision, maximizes the effortless form of mind-body integration.  It is the beginning of realizing an energetic connection between the mind and body.”

     

    “Of course, this realization did not come to me all at once.  I had been practicing consistently for about six months. Each morning I would get up, drink some water, and then sit in my blue velvet chair.  I would take a few minutes to feel my whole body, to activate a sense of presence through my base by focusing on the weight distribution between my sits bones and imagining a connection between my chest, tailbone and my feet.”

    “My actual practice was limited to four poses.  I would get down on my blue exercise mat and do each pose three times.  Dandasana: legs straight in front, palms pressed into the floor beside the hips, lift the chest.  Upavista Konasana (“wide-legs”): Legs far apart as possible, hands grab the legs just below the knees, lift the chest.  Baddha konosana: Soles of the feet pressing evenly into each other, interlock the fingers, grab underneath the feet, hold them firmly, lift the chest, and stretch torso up. Siddhasana: one leg bent at the knee, with the foot pressing against the opposite thigh; the other leg bent at the knee and the foot set upon the ankle of the first foot; join the thumbs and forefingers to rest the back of each hand upon each knee palms facing upward. With such a limited repertoire of poses, I was forced to learn from subtle differences between them.  I was made to look more deeply into what could easily have become ordinary.”

     

    “Just doing four poses was exciting enough.  My body, paralyzed though it was, was taking the shapes of real, bona fide yoga poses.  I would sit on the floor, use my arms to move my legs, bring the soles of my feet together, grab underneath them, and lift my chest.  The outward result was pleasing.  If a snapshot of my version of baddha konasana were held up next to a snapshot of another beginning student’s pose, they would have looked roughly the same.  I could do it.”

                    Matthew

     

    As he shared his experiences, he affirmed mine yet again.

     

    My experience with yoga has merged me with my body, where before I lived a few feet from it.  Also, it has given me wonderful insights as I yoga along.

     

     

  • Affirmed by His Experiences

    Maha Mudra, a chapter from Waking by Matthew Sanford.

     

    “When I return home from the hospital, everything seems the same – my blue velvet chair, the sounds of my fridge, the creaking of my wood floors.  Everything except for the feeling that I have recently chatted with aliens.  That’s how my body memories strike me.  How could my body have memories?  Bodies don’t have memories, minds do.  Not only did I believe this growing up, but my philosophical studies reinforced it.  Now, in the span of a few days in the hospital, my sense of who I am, where I begin, and where I end once again has broken wide open.  My body interacts with the world and records it regardless of whether my mind is having any experience.”  Matthew

     

    This is so reassuring to someone like me who has no memories of the actual molestation, the rape that my friend witnessed, and yet my body has given me the feelings of it, the paralyzing terror.

     

    While Matthew couldn’t recall the accident where he was paralyzed, his body was aware of the whole ride and recorded it and stored the information in feelings.

     

    It is the storage that I find remarkable.  It is stored until we are strong enough or willing to seek deep inside of us and explore the feelings that seem to be there at odd times, or feelings that don’t match our thoughts in reality.

     

    When my body responded physically to the news that my father was a pedophile, there wasn’t any thing I could do but follow its lead.  I knew by the second day that I too was a victim; I just didn’t know how I knew, for my mind was still as blank as ever.

     

    Yet deep within my cells, I felt the truth of it all.

     

    I knew that he molested me, I knew that all the times I feared him were justified and I felt this to be true, with emotions and feelings that were beyond an intellectual thought.

     

    Matthew continues.

     

    “ This seems simple enough.  For example, at any given time, the back of my head is visible to the world during every instant that I am awake.  My body is also present in every second that I am alive, even while I am sleeping.  Both of these thoughts are easy to grasp intellectually, but to feel them – that is different altogether.  I felt those body memories in three dimensions.  They went beyond the two-dimensional mental experiences and instead expressed themselves through the three dimensional experience of my body. That my body could be a possessor of memory made me confront something that was undeniable.  My body – not just my mind was also conscious.  How does one truly open to something like that?”

     

    “The act of “opening” consciousness makes us feel both uncertainty and the onrush of silence that comes with it.  This is one of the reasons that becoming aware is often painful.  There are many stunning things about the Grand Canyon.  One of them is the eerie silence that accompanies its vast expanse.  It is both awesome and unsettling – one knows not to stand too close to the edge.  The feeling of openness and a confrontation with silence are deeply related.”

     

    “Opening to the fact that my body was conscious caused me intense grief.  I took advantage of my thirteen-year-old body so many years ago. It was subjected to profound violence and I abandoned it in the process.  Did I really need to?  Was it really my only option?  The existence of these body memories made me confront the silence and uncertainty of recognizing my own mistakes.”  Matthew

     

    I know the grief that follows this awareness of consciousness within the body, the neglect we feel for not knowing it was alive and filled with feelings and how it awaits for our cue.  I am humbled by this body and I am now trying to release it from any other feelings that are lodged within. 

     

    Yoga seems to be a vehicle for doing this.  Matthew also speaks of his experiences with yoga…

     

    I will write more on that tomorrow.

     

    For now, I am affirmed by his experiences. 

     

  • Waking

    In Matthew Sanford’s book, “Waking” he writes in the chapter called “Body Memories”.

     

    “I am in the hospital, but what am I healing?  Is it my back or is it my past?  Whatever it is, I am on fire. What should be only a three- or –four-day stay turns into seven.  I cannot sleep.  Time won’t let me; ghosts won’t let me; past trauma won’t let me. Each time I drift off toward sleep, there is a fury. Startled, twitching, jumping, screaming – not mind, but body.  I can’t see it coming.  Blindsided, hammered, bouncing, thudding, breaking.  Then I wake to quiet, to stillness, only for it to repeat when I doze again.  I am exhausted, but it won’t let me sleep; whatever has me in its clutches won’t let me sleep.  I am overwhelmed.”

     

    “I am besieged by a past that I can no longer see.  I try drugs.  All these years later, they now give a patient control of the IV morphine drip.  I press a button and bingo.  I am trying to eliminate the transition into sleep; my aim is to move straight into passed out.  It doesn’t work; nothing works.  Something deep within me has uncorked.  I am coming apart. That thirteen-year-old boy is calling me back.  I am being pulled back into what I left behind.”

     

    “Over time, it dawns on me- I am having flashbacks.  Almost all of my physical trauma has occurred between the states of wakefulness and sleep.  I was dozing in the car when we slid down the embankment.  I was in a coma during those first few gruesome days.  I was on Valium when the screws went into my head, when they broke my wrist, and on and on.  So often my trauma had come when my guard was down, when I was trusting the world, when I was taking a nap.  Whether it is being in the hospital again or having my spine manipulated, my body is making me relive my past.  It is gaining voice because I am finally strong enough to let it.  My body has been terrified, and I am grief-stricken that it has suffered silently for so long.  I can’t stop crying.”

     

    “This goes on for nearly three days. Barfing body memories is what I am doing.  It feels completely out of my control.  But the memories are helping me regain a semblance of continuity. For example, I have mentioned before that I have no memory of the day of the accident. That’s not exactly true.  I have no mental memory. But I am learning that my body has retained the memory; it has been holding pieces of my history until I was ready.”

     

    “The experience of my body memory is hard to describe.  I now know the feeling in my body when our car shot hard left as our tires hit dry pavement.  I can feel the car tumble from left front corner to end over end.  More than anything, I can feel the terror of traumatic time, the pause, the hanging, just before impact. (This feeling is still triggered when I am landing in an airplane and the brakes engage.)  I now know that the blow to my upper thorax came from the right side at a downward angle, sweeping through my torso, from right-side ribs to left hip.  I also know- from the ‘inside’ – my shallowness of breath, my struggle for air, and my drift into shock at the accident scene.  Still, twenty-five years later, if my spine moves too much or too quickly during yoga, I go into a mild version of past shock.  My spine is still letting go of echoes of trauma.”

     

    “These memories are not visual. They are not thoughts.  They are experienced, something like the inward feeling of falling into a dream, only to wake up just before rolling off the bed.  They are pauses of fright and held in the silence before breath.  They are my body bearing witness to what my mind could not.”

     

    “As I lie in that hospital bed, I am temporarily living in more than one dimension at a time.  I did not expect this level of healing.  I thought I that losing the metal in my back would be enough, that this would neatly end a twelve-year chapter of disintegration.  Healing, however, is not instantaneous.  It is earned. There is no way to step around my body’s past experience.  I am terrified.  My body has much to say, and it needs acknowledgement.  More importantly, I need to feel grateful.”

     

    “As I wake up to the horror of traumatically induced body memories, I am forced to feel death – not the end of my life, but the death of my life as a walking person.  I absorb death as I watched that young boy having screws twisted into his skull. The silence within which I found refuge was a level of dying.”

     

    “In principal, my experience is not that uncommon, only more extreme.  We all experience levels of dying throughout our lives – the process of living guarantees it. As each day passes especially in our later years, we become increasingly aware of our own mortality.  If we can see death as more than black and white, as more than on and off, there are many versions of realized death short of physically dying. The death of a loved one sets so much in motion: grief, a sense of loss, tears, anger, transcendent sense of love, an appreciation of the present moment, a desire to die, and on and on…”

     

    “What happened to me was simply more dramatic.  I absorbed an unusual dose of death at an age when I still had much living to do. Then I made it worse by working to overcome my paralyzed body.  I used my will to step over it, to step over the perceived death of two-thirds of my body.  My actions unknowingly injured me.  Now, I can’t stop crying because in this hospital I am experiencing the convulsing body of a suffering, but I am doing so as an adult…”

     

    “During the previous twelve years, I have borrowed against my body.  I have unwittingly relied upon the resounding beauty of its discipline against death.  When I “left” my body during my traumatic experiences, it was my body that kept tracking toward living.  It was my body that kept moving blood both to and from my heart.  Often, as we age and can no longer do what we once could, we say that our bodies are failing us. That is misguided.  In fact our bodies continue to carry out the processes of life and unwavering devotion.  They will always move toward living for as long as they possibly can.  My body did not as for the rupture that it experienced, but it somehow survived it.”

     

    “I am still returning to my body and will do so for the rest of my life.  I will leave this hospital with the crushing realization of my body’s commitment to my living.  I did not mean to take it for granted.”

                    Matthew Sanford